1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photoelectric conversion apparatus, and more particularly, to a photoelectric conversion apparatus for use to achieve auto focusing based on phase difference detection.
2. Description of the Related Art
One of sensors for use in auto focusing is configured to include a photosensor element for detecting position information of an object and further include a monitoring sensor that detects the light intensity to control an accumulation time of the photosensor element. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-031507 discloses a technique in which transmission paths are separately provided such that a signal from a photosensor element that detects position information is transmitted via one path and a signal from a monitoring sensor is transmitted via a different path. Furthermore in this technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-031507, one monitoring sensor is provided for each of a plurality of photosensor elements for detecting position information.
In the configuration disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-031507, the signal output from the photosensor element for detecting position information and the signal output from the monitoring sensor are processed by different detection circuits, and thus a difference between the detection circuits can cause an adverse effect on the AF characteristic. Besides the sharing of one monitoring sensor by a plurality of photosensor elements for detecting position information can make it difficult to achieve high monitoring accuracy.